Saturday 30 April

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Comparison is not a new word for any of us. Daily we all fall to our knees to the king of making our lives and all that we do feel utterly useless and, shortly put, rubbish. It’s like no matter what we do, we always fall short of being good enough.

This is a lie sewn so far into our skin and drilled so hard into society that we don’t realise we do it some of the time. Bodies, lives, successes and achievements. What we have versus we don’t. And it’s easy to do, to flick through your friends’ social media accounts or those of your favourite celebrities and think “man, my life sucks” and “I wish I had everything figured out at this age like XYZ have”.

This way of thinking only leads to self-sabotage and hatred. It’s worse that we do it subconsciously, too. Society – that’s us – conspire against ourselves and the idea that we are, actually, good enough. Everyone starts somewhere. Those people’s lives you are comparing yours to right now, and wish you were them? They started where you are right now too! We are all individuals and are all on our own journeys, for some that goal takes longer to reach than others. Don’t compare your goals and successes to others and think that they’re so lucky or that they’ve had it easy, because 99.9% of the time they haven’t!

I can’t preach to you dozens of ways we can go about dealing with this as it is so drilled into our minds at this point in societal development. However, what I can do, is give you three pieces of advice:

Firstly, make a list of what you do have and all that you have achieved. When you next start to compare yourself to others, and how far they have come along in life compared to you, for example, acknowledge all the things you have done, little or big. On a day to day basis, the first thing on that list could be “get out of bed”. That alone is one of the biggest achievements of your day sometimes, on those super hard days. That, my friend, can go at the right at the top of your list. Be thankful for what you do have – this is the act of gratitude and self-kindness. Remind yourself of what you have, which you can be thankful for.

Secondly, remember that you are doing the very best you can right now. Even when you feel like you’re not trying, you are. Some days are harder (much harder) than others, and that’s ok because every single person on this planet has days like that. Yes, even those people you see online and think that they have it all together. That’s just how they appear. (This could be a subside to this point – remember that social media is fake and people only post on it what they want you to see, something which I cannot tell you enough!) Trying is all that matters. Your very best may be different to someone else’s, to your friends and family. But you are still trying nevertheless. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

And thirdly, tell yourself that you are elite. There is only one of you on this planet – how cool is that? Nobody else can ever be you. And you can never be anyone else. So why do we waste time pretending like we can look exactly like that one person we see online every day? Why waste time doing that when we can be the person we were meant to be? You are incredible, even if sometimes you feel like you’re not. You’re unique and that is an amazing thing in this world where everything, every life and day, can feel so samey. You are special, never forget that.

❤ Pepetoe love.